The next morning arrived in an instant and Gary walked in. “I'm really sorry about this, kid.” He said and held up a wooden peg that was attached to a short leather harness and he held a hand saw in his other hand. He told me to lay flat and pretend that I was standing, then he slipped the harness over the stub of my calf and wrapped the straps around my knee and part of my thigh.

“Why does my ankle still hurt?” I asked him.

“Your mind still thinks you have an ankle.” A healer said from nearby.

I turned my head to look at her as Gary used the hand saw to trim off the bottom of the peg to the right height to match my real leg. “How does that work? I don't feel my missing fingers or toes.”

“Oh, but you did.” The healer said and put Donna back to sleep after checking on her and came over to me. “You had a very hard time grabbing things and walking, didn't you?” She asked and I nodded. “That's because your mind was used to having them be there and had a difficult time adjusting to them not being there.”

“So did I.” I responded.

The healer picked up my hand and ran her fingers over the spot where my small finger used to be. “I've never seen such a perfect removal. Usually there's some indentation in the skin or a mark where it used to be, like how your leg is now.” She said and caressed the spot. “You didn't see how it was done?”

I shook my head. “The Hag knocked me out and I woke up after.”

The healer sighed. “It would be a valuable technique if you knew.”

I didn't say anything and she let my hand go.

“That's it, kid.” Gary said as he cleaned up the bottom of the peg and rounded the sharp corner. “Want to give it a try?”

“The Colonel ordered me to get to work.” I said and turned to put my feet on the floor. Well, foot and peg. I took a deep breath and eased myself off of the bed and slowly stood up. I started to wobble and the healer stepped close and held onto me.

“Easy, now. You are going to have balance problems for a while.” The healer said. “You don't have the automatic correcting ability that your brain learned from having two feet.”

“I'm more worried about slipping when I walk.” I said and looked down at the wooden floor and my wooden peg. “There's no grip on the bottom of this thing.”

Gary and the healer both looked surprised.

“Do you have my uniform?” I asked and Gary nodded. He went over to the side of the door and picked up a canvas bag. He handed it to me and I pulled out the clothing and a pair of modified boots. They were my last pair, too. I shoved the right one back into the bag and looked at the nurse. “Can you help me get changed?”

“Of course.” The healer said.

After a lot of unsteady movements and a bit of laughter on her part when I had to sit down for her to help me put on my underwear, I was dressed and my right pant leg hung below my knee and showed that there was nothing inside of it.

“We might have to tie that off or remove it.” Gary said and looked at the loose pant leg. “It's going to get in the way a lot more than it's going to cover up the peg.” He knelt down and wrapped it around the peg and used a piece of cord to tie it.

“I need a hand getting back to the maintenance building.” I said and Gary offered to become my crutch as I hung the canvas bag over my shoulder and held my knife at a non-threatening angle.

“Don't push yourself too hard.” The healer said as I half walked and half hopped towards the door with Gary's help.

“You can tell that to the Colonel if it's an official recommendation.” I responded and she closed her mouth and didn't say anything else. “That's what I thought. Thanks anyway.”

The healer looked a little lost as I left the room with Gary giving me some support with his arm. It wasn't as bad moving when I stepped onto the dirt, except that it was the length of my foot without a boot on. Not only was it shorter than the sole of the boot, it also dug down into the dirt a bit, which made me even more lopsided. Everyone that saw us or passed us, gave me a sorrow filled look.

“I guess that's better than hatred.” I commented.

Gary looked at me with surprise on his face, so I explained about the looks people were giving me. “David, the whole base knows what you did out there. Mage Henrietta made sure of that.”

“How?”

“She gave out copies of the incident report and gave an open air briefing to the other mages in the garrison.”

It was my turn to look surprised and he chuckled.

“Despite the whole brigade working different shifts, she somehow managed to let everyone know what happened.” Gary said. “It's a bit amazing, honestly. Even the Colonel needs to go to the different sections to deliver orders and Mage Henrietta never left the main compound where the mages stay.”

“What's everyone saying?” I asked.

“There's not really anything they can say. You saw the healer's reaction.” Gary said and I nodded. “They are more scared of her than they are of you.”

Just like the Hag. I thought.

We arrived at the maintenance building and Gary helped me open my building up.

“Have the squads gathered up what I asked for?” I asked as he set me down on the stool in front of my workbench.

“There's a dozen canvas bags of each ingredient next door. I stored them in a cool dry place like you wanted.” Gary said. “I also retrieved the crates of empty vials from Diane.”

“Thank you.” I said. “I need the sole from a discarded boot and I'll need a water run in an hour.”

“No, you don't. I've got ten barrels already set up for you behind the building.” Gary said and pat my shoulder. “Do you need a hand prepping everything?”

“Is Gillis free?”

“No, she's busy being the CO's assistant.”

“The CO and not the Colonel?” I asked and he nodded. “Why would Sandra do that?”

“She's trying to protect Gillis by keeping her out of trouble and away from the Colonel.” Gary said.

“It's too bad that won't work for long.” I said. “Can you get Mage Henrietta for me and see if she's free?”

Gary nodded. “She should be free. I'll send someone to go get her.”

“What time are we leaving?” I asked.

“You've got two hours and then a squad will pack up all of this.” Gary waved at my setup. “Are you sure we need to take the firewood, too?”

“I'm sure there's wildwood where we're going; but, I can't harvest it myself in my current state. I've got to make a few things before I can try and get back to fighting strength.”

“Don't tell Mage Henrietta that.” Gary chuckled. “She'll scrub this mission if you tell her.”

“The Colonel won't let her this time. It's now or...” I didn't have to finish that sentence.

Gary put a hand on my shoulder for a moment, gave it a little squeeze, then left to get the ingredients. I opened my hidden stash with my knife and quickly made up another bandoleer with a proper sheath for the knife, then tucked the last few vials of number ten potion into it. I didn't have much left over from the last batch and what I had carried on me was destroyed after the dragon battle. There was no way that I was going to be allowed to go home to get the last of my backup stock, either.

I sighed and hung the practically empty bandoleer over my shoulder and across my body. Gary came back with several ingredient bags and an old boot. I nodded and cut a good portion out of the heel, the strongest part, then added some number ten potion to it and stepped on it with the peg. Gary stared at me as I did it and the potion merged the two things together.

“That's still so weird to see.” Gary said.

“Darling!” Mage Henrietta exclaimed as she stepped into the building. “I'm so glad that you sent for me.”

“I'll bring over the other bags of ingredients.” Gary said and left us alone.

Mage Henrietta looked down at my leg and she took in a sharp breath. “They took so much!”

“The damage was extensive, apparently.” I said with a shrug.

Mage Henrietta came over to me and put her hands on my shoulders. “David, I... I'm sorry. I tried to get Diane in to see you...” She said and then explained about the Colonel banning non-essential personnel from the garrison while a mission was ongoing.

I sighed and put my hands on hers. “It's not your fault.”

“I thought so, until the CO told me that if I hadn't blocked the Colonel's plans so much that she wouldn't have denied my request.” Mage Henrietta said and leaned her forehead against mine. “She knows how much I like you and hurting you seems to be her only goal at the moment.”

“She wants me to complete the plans on schedule.” I said and Mage Henrietta took in a sharp breath. “We ship out in two hours and ten minutes.”

“I understand.” Mage Henrietta said, determination in her eyes. “What do you need my help with?”

“I'm doing two pots of number ten potion and the other ten pots will be general health potions.” I said. “Will you help me prepare the ingredients?”

Mage Henrietta gave me wide eyes for a moment, then she let a warm smile grow and leaned in to give me a gentle kiss. “Show me what to do.”

We both got to work and time seemed to pass in an instant. We had filled eight crates of vials with number ten potion to help with the quick construction and forty crates with general health potion. Thankfully, Donna had been smart to set up the rotation of the troops and as they prepped their equipment and loaded onto the boats, they stopped by my potion building and took the potion.

In only a few minutes, everything in my setup was packed up and loaded onto my boat. I was taking the second construction crew to the second site with a skirmish squad. While there, I would set up and make more potions and refill the empty vials to deliver back to the garrison. It was the only way to ensure that I was constantly working and helping the troops. None of my time was wasted.

It took another trip back and forth to the garrison to drop off the next work crew and the supplies they needed at the fourth site, along with the appropriate skirmish squads to protect them if the protection ward wasn't enough to drive off any ambitious creatures. After two more trips, I finally had enough general health potions made for the entire brigade.

I delivered them and kept working by driving the boat to pick up the previous crew to drop them off at the next site. The leap frogging continued as each relay station was built and each time I stopped to wait, I would have a squad gather the ingredients for health potions and would make them up. I once tried to go and look for myself, to try and find different ingredients to make the rare strength and regeneration potions, and I was stopped by the skirmish squad.

“Private, you aren't allowed to leave the protected area.” One of them said.

“You can follow me and...”

“We're not allowed to leave, either.” He responded.

I didn't try to sneak past, since my peg leg was definitely not conductive to sneaking. In fact, it was actually quite noisy, even with the thick boot sole buffer on the end. I was definitely going to have to do something about that, so I started thinking about it while more potions brewed. I sat in my designated area and watched the construction crew using number ten potion to join the wood planks together and I had an idea.

The peg wasn't very good for moving well or for balance, so why don't I make it into a copy of a foot instead? I would have to make a waterproofing potion and a number ten potion to get enough for what I wanted to do, though. I would also need the spare boot that I had left back at the garrison, which meant that I had to wait until I went back to get more supplies before I could put my plan into action.

It was only a matter of time before I could make myself reasonably mobile again.